


Lover

by Oliviet



Category: Veronica Mars (Movie 2014), Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: All Seasons, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot Collection, Plus movie, Smut, this is going to end up in like every genre eventually i think, what am I missing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:41:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24026017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oliviet/pseuds/Oliviet
Summary: "In life you accumulate scars. You accumulate hurt. You accumulate moments of learning and disappointment and struggle. And if someone's gonna take your hand, they better take your hand, scars and all." - Taylor SwiftA collection of LoVe one-shots based off of each song on Taylor Swift's Lover album.
Relationships: Logan Echolls/Veronica Mars
Comments: 34
Kudos: 108





	1. I Forgot That You Existed

**Author's Note:**

> For Tessa and Liv - I finally got around to starting this. Thank you for your continued encouragement. :) 
> 
> I do not own of any these lyrics, Miss Swift does. As she should. 
> 
> None of these chapters are going to tie in together. Each one will be independent focused on the specific lyrics of each track. They jump around canon a lot, so I'll try and tell you where in the timeline each fits in. Chapter One is set during the movie.

_I forgot that you_

_Sent me a clear message_

_Taught me some hard lessons_

_I just forget what they were_

_It's all just a blur_

She had moved on. She lived on the other side of the country. She was _this_ close to landing a job at one of the top law firms in New York City. She had a steady boyfriend who never pushed her buttons or made her want to throw things. For all intents and purposes, she finally had a normal life.

And she’d even stopped thinking about _him_. His was no longer the face which ran through her dreams. Yellow colored cars no longer made her do a double take. The ocean waves setting on her sound soother reminded her of home, of California, but not of him.

She doesn’t know when it happened. How she managed to wake up one day and just simply be okay without him. Especially when he used to keep her up at night: thoughts of him, her regrets, her pain. But it’s been months since she’s even let his name filter across her mind. She wouldn’t say it felt freeing exactly, but it felt…grown up.

Nine years apart and it was like she forgot that he existed. Something she once thought would destroy her, but it didn’t. It almost felt like all that was left was indifference and she had no clue as to how that could be possible.

But she had allowed herself to move on, hoping that he had too.

Until she saw his face splashed across a tabloid. Until he called her asking for her help. Until he flew her back out to California in _first class_ picking her up from the airport in those damn Navy Whites.

And now she can’t remember why she had tried so hard to forget him. What had gone so wrong between them before when they could so easily fall back into their old rhythms? How had she almost completely forgotten what his laugh sounds like? Or the way the smell of his cologne still threatens to seduce her? Or how just being around him, riding in his convertible with her hair down, taking the long way home, could be an entirely different feeling of truly being _home_.

How did she let herself forget?

She recognizes where he’s taking her. It’s certainly a detour to her dad’s new place; the complete opposite side of town. But this had always been their beach. Long summer nights spent out here. Nights which that oceans waves setting on her sound soother took her back to for years until the one night it finally stopped. But maybe not finally. More like unfortunately. When she flipped through the settings and heard the waves crashing on the shores, she’d pictured Neptune, but he was no longer there with her. Her mind had forced him out of the picture. And as she looks over at him now and feels her chest swell with a long-forgotten ache, she thinks she knows why.

Missing him was too painful so she made him cease to exist instead. You can’t miss what you don’t remember.

But she remembers it all now. The love, the hate, the zero instances of indifference because it had always been all or nothing with the two of them. She finds that she no longer wants to forget.

And she doesn’t know what that means for her almost normal life. The one the beckons her from the other side of the country. The one that likely sends him overseas and far, far away from her. The one that she had been happy in until she saw him again and realized that _he_ is what makes her happy.

“I know my dad moved and the route isn’t exactly a familiar one anymore, but I think you missed a turn back there,” she tells him.

He glances over at her with a grin on his face that she realizes she missed desperately. That look always did things to her insides. It still does.

“Why? You still got a curfew?”

“No, just an overprotective father who has yet to realize that I’m almost 30.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll have you home before the sun comes up.”

She’s missed this, the teasing, the back and forth. Nobody talks to her like this anymore. Nobody does a lot of things to her like he used to.

She feels the next words she wants to say to him on the tip of her tongue, she can hear them running through her head.

_Are you bringing me out here to trace a couple of hearts on my thighs as payback for Ruby?_

But she holds them back because aren’t they in fact different people these days? Sex had always been their love language. Mad at each other about something? Just fuck it out. Too scared to actually tell him that you love him? Just show him with your tongue and your hips. She’s not that teenager anymore. She can’t just lead with an innuendo driven comment and expect him to be okay with it. His girlfriend was just murdered for fucks sake.

“What are we doing, Logan?”

He shifts his car into park, the beach displayed out before them. The moonlight reflects off the water and her mind drifts back to an evening where he’d talked her into skinny dipping with him, teasing her relentlessly about their game of truth or dare from sophomore Homecoming.

“You asked to take the long way home,” he says simply like she’s supposed to know what that means in regard to all of this.

“Yes, but I wasn’t banking on any pitstops.”

She catches his eye and he looks sad, like she’s supposed to be in on some joke she’s forgotten.

“You don’t remember?” he asks quietly.

She stares at him, studying the way time has morphed his boyish features into the Navy man sitting before her. Her eyes trace over the crew cut of his hair, the defined muscles in his arms. He grew up when she wasn’t looking. He grew up while she was trying to forget.

“When you used to ask me to take the long way home, you wanted me to bring you here.”

She feels her mouth fall open. How did she forget that? How did she manage to forget that they had their own secret code? He knew her so well, _too well_ , and she let him slip through her fingers and into another life.

“Of course,” she says softly, forcing herself to look away from him.

She can feel the tension rolling between them now. It’s been there since the airport, but she’s been trying so damn hard to ignore it.

“Are you happy, Veronica?”

A week ago she was. Today she’s not so sure.

“I’ve made a life in New York,” she shrugs.

“Sure, but is it a happy one?”

She looks back at him, sees all of the emotions swirling in his eyes. She may have forgotten their secret code, but she still knows how to read him.

“Come on,” she says, pushing open the car door and getting out.

She walks backward toward the sand so she can keep an eye on him and make sure he follows. He does, of course, because there’s a part of her that still _knows_ him. He trails along behind her, catching up as she pauses to take off her shoes and her toes curl into the sand.

High powered New York City lawyer or not, _this_ will always be a part of who she is. Not your average or typical California girl by any means, but enough of one that some days she can still feel the ocean running through her veins. She closes her eyes, listening to the slow roll and crash of the waves, thinking about how much better it sounds in person compared to the tinny speakers of her sound soother.

His hand brushes against the back of hers and she lets her fingers tangle loosely through his without a word. She opens her eyes and turns to look at him. For a split second they’re seventeen again. Young and free. Still with scars, but not as many.

“Your life in New York,” he tries again. “Is it everything you dreamed of?”

She’d dreamed of him once. Let herself believe that what they had would last. They’d move in together, maybe get a dog. Thinking that maybe if she wasn’t so jaded, she’d marry him. The only boy to ever make her feel like he could. That was a marriage that just might work, unlike every other one that filled her life. A fever dream really, because they could never even manage to keep their relationship together for an entire year. Their marriage would be over before it even started.

She’s shaking her head without even realizing she’s doing it. “I wanted to get out of Neptune, and I did that. I wanted to stop being a P.I. and I did that.”

“That’s all you aspire to? A non-P.I. life outside of this town?”

She doesn’t know what she wants. Not anymore. A week ago, it had been a law firm job in a big city. A nice boy who only ever made her smile and never cry. A normal, seemingly boring life. But now? Now she wants to _feel_ something. The adrenaline of a case. The heat of an argument. Logan’s lips against her neck.

Wait, what?

“It’s complicated,” she answers, kicking at the sand under her feet.

“Doesn’t have to be.”

“It’s me, Logan. When is anything I’m involved in ever simple?”

“Things had been simple with us once.”

She shoots him a look.

“Until they weren’t,” he adds.

She squeezes his hand, tugging on him and leading him closer to the water. The tide rolls in and just barely grazes her toes. The water’s cold and she’s assaulted with another memory of him. Logan trying to carry her into the ocean on an early summer day, her fighting it, squealing as the cold water lapped against her thighs. She’s almost dizzy with the thought of it, how she once trusted him so completely she just let this boy carry her out to sea.

“Something on your mind?” he asks.

She hears the hesitation in his voice, almost like he had to cut himself off. Was he about to call her Bobcat? God, she hasn’t heard that name in…well…nine years.

She drops his hand and spins around in the sand, flinging out her arms and trying to take in all of this ocean air before it’s gone again. Before _she’s_ gone again.

“I forgot that you existed,” she says with a sigh.

Even in the moonlight, she can still see his smirk. “Impossible.”

“No, I did,” she tells him. “Thoughts of you used to keep me up at night. And then one day, they just stopped.”

He ducks his head, scrubbing a hand through his short hair. “Didn’t think I was that easy to forget.”

“I didn’t like it,” she confesses. “Forgetting you.”

“How do you know that you didn’t like it if you don’t remember?”

“Because I remember it all now, and forgetting you? It didn’t feel like this.”

“And how does _this_ feel exactly?”

_Like coming home_.

“Like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”

He smiles at her like he understands. Of course he does. Whether at 17 or 28, he just gets her.

“I thought I’d erased you too,” Logan tells her. “Got my act together, made a career for myself, started dating someone who didn’t actually remind me of you.”

“So, what happened?”

“You mean aside from someone trying to frame me for Carrie’s murder?”

She raises an eyebrow at him. She knows there’s more. He wouldn’t have started this conversation if there wasn’t more.

“I found an old note you left me,” he says, stepping closer to her. “Shoved in the pocket of an old sport’s coat I think I only wore once. Found it when I was cleaning out my closet.”

She cocks her head to the side, trying to remember what note he could be talking about. “What did it say?”

He steps closer to her still. “L, my shift ends at 7. V.”

He’s so close now she can feel the heat radiating from him. He always could keep her warm at night.

“Real thrilling stuff there, you old packrat,” she teases.

“It took me a while, but then I remembered why I kept it.”

“Care to share with the rest of the class?” she asks, swallowing hard when he reaches out to tuck her hair behind her ear.

“You were working your final shift at Java the Hut. You slipped me the napkin with this note on it with my coffee. That night, after your shift –”

She closes her eyes against the memory. “It was the first time we had sex.”

“Not as dumb as she looks, folks.”

When she opens her eyes, his face is _right there_ , and she swears he’s going to kiss her. She wants him to. She wants to feel like her old self again. The girl who could so easily get lost in Logan Echolls. The one who loved him. The one who never wanted to forget.

“We should get you home,” he says instead, taking a step back.

She curses under her breath. She’s back to needing him. Years’ worth of forgetting and moving on ruined just by looking at him again. And by talking to him, hearing his laugh, smelling his cologne, feeling the weight of his hand in hers.

But he’s still getting over somebody and she – still has somebody. She won’t be a cheater, that’s not who she is. But does she break up with the nice guy for the bad boy turned Navy pilot? She watches him retreat backwards to pick up her abandoned shoes. Watches him wait for her to join him, her pair of heels dangling off his fingertips.

Her mind is busy dusting the cobwebs off of the old Logan box. She’s missed him. All of him. The fights, the makeups, the make outs. The way she fit so perfectly in his arms. That stupid ass nickname he called her whenever she was on top. He’s worth all of it. A normal big city life has got nothing on her spending her days in this stupid small town constantly cleaning up after the trouble he manages to simply walk into.

She used to think he’d taught her everything she never wanted in a guy again. That she had learned her lesson in trying to make something work with someone like him. But maybe what he really taught her is that someone like him is worth the work.

“You’re gonna get me up early tomorrow to investigate another lead aren’t you?” she asks, slowly walking toward him.

“I’m a military man now, Veronica. I’ve been programmed to rise with the sun. The investigative leads, however, that’s still your department.”

“So, you plan to call me at 6 AM for the hell of it?”

“Who said I was waking you up at 6 AM?”

“That stupid, mischievous grin on your face.”

He grins wider as she slides up next to him, gingerly taking her shoes out of his hands, allowing her fingers to brush against his.

“For someone who claims to have forgotten about me, you sure still know how to read me.”

“It’s a talent,” she shrugs, bumping her shoulder into his as they start walking back toward his car together.

“What about after all of this is over? You gonna forget me again?”

He holds open the passenger door for her and she slides inside.

“Not a chance.”

She holds his gaze as he stares down at her, leaning on the car door. No matter what happens after all of this, no matter how any of this ends between them, there is one thing she knows for certain. She will _never_ forget about him again.


	2. Cruel Summer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics belong to Taylor Swift. This chapter is set during the summers between seasons 1 and 2 and seasons 2 and 3. 
> 
> I wanted to do something else with this chapter originally, and honestly I've been trying to find those words for weeks and they just weren't coming to me. It morphed into this instead.

_Fever dream high_

_In the quiet of the night_

_You know that I caught it (oh yeah, you're right, I want it)_

_Bad, bad boys_

_Shiny toy with a price_

_You know that I bought it (oh yeah, you're right, I want it)_

The first summer that they were together, she still felt like they were sneaking around. Logan had his huge house to himself with Aaron awaiting trial in a jail cell somewhere, a fact which her father was all too aware of. And yet despite the fact that they had this whole huge house at their disposal, they constantly found themselves making out in the backseat of his Xterra. Over his lunch break at summer school parked in the damn Neptune High parking lot in broad daylight, where Dick and company would constantly interrupt them and drag Logan away to do some more dumbass shit in their war with the PCHers. Or there was their other go to location, parked outside of her apartment building in the pitch-black darkness of night, practically asking for Keith to nonchalantly take Backup out.

But she never told him no or insisted that they just go back to his place. Maybe there was a part of her who knew that left to their own devices without the constant interruptions, she would let him do more than sneak his hands under her clothes. And maybe her head and her heart and her libido weren’t quite on all the same page yet. Or maybe she just liked the thrill of knowing they would inevitably get caught. It’s not like she wanted to be _watched_ , but it was more like a challenge. How far could get they get before they would be forced to stop? Could she get him to moan before that happened? Could he get her off?

Maybe she was stuck on the mentality that he was a quote unquote bad boy and sneaking around with him in his car felt like the right thing to do. It was very unlike anything she and Duncan had ever done and was more along the lines of stories Lilly had told her. She liked having a relationship so different than the ones she had in the past. She’d never _wanted_ a boy the way she constantly wanted him. Likewise, her exes had never wanted her the way Logan did. It was thrilling…electric.

“You ever feel like we’re still trying to hide this from people?” he asked her once.

“You did announce to a room full of people your father thought were your closest friends that I was your girlfriend. I don’t think there’s much hiding this after that.”

“Yeah, but it still feels like we’re sneaking around.”

“We are _constantly_ interrupted in our attempts. Everyone knows we’re a thing.”

“Your favorite place to hang out with me seems to be the back of my car.”

“Because that’s where all of the fun happens. I’m not going to let you feel me up in a restaurant.”

“The waitstaff would be entertained to say the least.”

_Killing me slow, out the window_

_I'm always waiting for you to be waiting below_

_Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes_

_What doesn't kill me makes me want you more_

Then he went and did something stupid like telling her that he loved her.

He’d said it so easily. Let the words slip past his lips as easily as his hands slipped through her hair. He’d caught her off guard, pulled the words out after she’d joked that her dad probably had eyes on them. She couldn’t find the words to say it back. All she could do was smile and make another joke about getting past second base and let him keep kissing her, all the while praying he wouldn’t hate her for not being able to say it back.

And in truth, he didn’t. He never pushed her or demanded to know her feelings. She wondered if he knew how she felt without the words. Thought about telling him why she couldn’t say it back, but was too afraid to get that vulnerable with him. Those were the last words she’d told her mother before she woke up one morning to learn she had left. And as irrational as it was, she was too afraid to speak them again and scare somebody else she actually did love away.

And her stupid, stubborn, 17-year-old pride, refused to let him know that he had that much power. That he meant that much to her. How in just a few months, she’d fallen just as hard for him and was too afraid of losing him to let him know. That being with him, even with the shitstorm of his trial, and his dad’s trial, and the dumb ass ‘09er – PCHers war, she felt a kind of safe peacefulness she hadn’t felt since Lilly was alive.

Until she didn’t. The attack on his car with them in it that night had been one thing, but everything only escalated from there. And it wasn’t even that she was starting to feel unsafe around him, but that she was starting to worry about his own safety. She couldn’t sit back and watch him blow up his life any longer. She wouldn’t let herself fall in love with him only to watch him get himself killed.

So, she ended it. Cut off their summer of make outs and messy feelings and walked away and right back into boring old Duncan’s arms.

And she hated it.

Because truth be told, she did love Logan, even if she refused to say it.

_And it's new_

_The shape of your body, it's blue_

_The feeling I've got_

_And it's ooh, whoa oh_

_It's a cruel summer_

Their second summer together, she let him get further than sneaking his hands under her clothes. She spent nights memorizing every plane of his body, tracing over every scar. She tried to let her actions speak for every word she wanted to say but still couldn’t manage to get out. And he understood her. Understood her _so well_ that she honestly thought she was going to start crying once he responded with “I love you too, Veronica” to the simple press of her lips to his neck.

_This_. This was the kind of safe peacefulness she’d been searching for and faking herself into believing the previous summer. She’d felt safe with him ever since he’d shown up on the rooftop for her, letting her cling to him, comforting her. If her dad had really been dead, and thank god he was not, Logan had been ready to be there for her, to _take care of her_.

He was still so in love with her even after a year of fighting. She often felt like she didn’t deserve him, this boy who loved her so openly and completely. He’d grown up needing that for himself and instead he was giving it all away to her. _Fuck_. Why did it still scare her so much to say it? It was like there were two competing voices in her head: one telling her that he was so clearly in this and not going anywhere and the other telling her he would leave if she became too clingy.

So, she kept quiet. Let her lips linger against his skin too long, let herself curl too tightly into his side. And he kept adding the “too” into his sweet mumblings against her hair. He knew. _He knew_. She didn’t even have to say it.

She just wished that she actually could.

“Can I ask you something?” she asked him one night, curled up against him on the couch in his hotel room, a movie neither of them were really paying any attention to playing softly in the background.

“You just did,” he answered with a smirk.

“If my dad had been on that plane –”

She couldn’t even finish, but he knew anyway. He had long since started to excel in reading her silence.

“I’d let you room with me. I don’t think the hotel allows dogs though, but we would have figured something out so you could keep Backup. Found our own place. Maybe somewhere close to campus. Or the beach.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“I’d do it for you now if your dad wouldn’t throw an absolute fit at the thought of us moving in together before we’re even 20, but hey.” He laughed and pulled her closer. “I’ve got your back. I had it then, I’ve got it now. I wouldn’t let you end up alone. I know how much that sucks.”

“You’re not alone, Logan. You’ve got me.”

_It's cool_

_That's what I tell 'em, no rules_

_In breakable heaven but_

_Ooh, whoa oh_

_It's a cruel summer_

_With you_

She felt like there were no rules when she was with him that summer, no limits. Invincible was a good way to put it. They’d never been this comfortable with each other before, this at ease.

They no longer hid in the back of his Xterra to escape the world together. And while The Grand was becoming one of their constant safe spaces, they had other secret hideaways too. Like their beach. He’d dragged her there once because she was giving him crap about surfing and he wanted to show off. After that, it sort of became one of their spots.

They’d come here after a date, sometimes even before one, spread a towel or a blanket out across the sand, and listen to the soothing sound of the tide rolling in. On clear nights, they’d stare up at the stars, trying to find constellations or make up new ones. They’d talk about how there was so much more to this world than Neptune, California, and how they wanted to get out and see all of it.

“Where do you want to end up?” Logan asked one night in late June. “If you could pick anywhere in the world, if money wasn’t an issue, where would you go?”

“I don’t know. For all of the time and effort I’ve put into dreaming about a life outside of Neptune, the farthest I’ve let my mind wander is Stanford.”

“So, Northern California? That’s the dream?”

“There is no _dream_ ,” she sighed. “I just want out. It could be anywhere at this point. What about you?”

“Hawaii sounds nice. They’ve got a great surf scene and I could keep my warm weather and it’s far enough away from here that it could be a new start.”

“You want a do over on your life?”

“Parts of it.”

“What would you change?”

“I’d try harder to convince my mom to leave my dad. If I’d gotten her to move us somewhere like Hawaii, maybe she’d still be alive. Lilly too.”

“If you grew up in Hawaii, I never would have met you.”

“Maybe I’d move inland for college. We’d end up in the same gen ed classes. I’d fall for the pretty blonde sitting in front of me.”

“Lilly?”

“No, Veronica. You.”

_Hang your head low_

_In the glow of the vending machine_

_I'm not dying (oh yeah, you're right, I want it)_

_We say that we'll just screw it up in these trying times_

_We're not trying (oh yeah, you're right, I want it)_

She had felt so comfortable, so safe, so…smitten, that she hadn’t really seen the fight coming. Looking back, it seemed inevitable. A ticking time bomb blanketed by the warmth and freedom of summer.

He’d given her a bracelet for her birthday, a beautiful white gold chain with a daisy made out of the same metal in the center of it, her birthstone glittering from the middle of the flower. But even after their blissful summer together, that sinking insecurity refused to leave her alone.

“What will the other girls think about this?” she asked, tracing her fingers over it. “They’ll think you’ve started playing favorites.”

She was joking, but perhaps it was a joke she made more times than she realized.

“When are you going to stop doing that?” he asked, shaking his head.

“Doing what?”

“Acting like I’m seeing somebody else besides you. You’ve got to know by now that you’re the only one that I want. I feel like you don’t trust me when you say things like that.”

“I do trust you. That’s not it at all.”

“Then what is it, Veronica? Why do I get the vibe sometimes that you’re too afraid to be in this all the way with me?”

“I _am_ in this. How can you try and say that I’m not?”

“It’s just…you’re afraid to open up.”

“About what?”

“About anything.”

She knew that she was afraid to be vulnerable with him. She’d been over this internal argument with herself dozens of times. She was just too afraid to get hurt, no matter how much she trusted him, no matter how safe she felt around him. All this time she thought she was protecting herself. But what if the thing she thought she was doing to protect herself, ended up being the thing that scared him away?

_So cut the headlights_

_Summer's a knife_

_I'm always waiting for you_

_Just to cut to the bone_

_Devils roll the dice_

_Angels roll their eyes_

_And if I bleed_

_You'll be the last to know_

“I tell you things. We talk,” she said defensively.

He was frustrated and she knew it. Frustrated about all of the things she wasn’t saying. Frustrated about all of the things she _was_ saying.

“But I want you to _really_ talk to me, Veronica. To let me in. I know you still have nightmares about…you see I’m not even sure what your bad dreams are made up of. Just that on nights when your dad is out of town and you fall asleep in my bed, you wake up startled sometimes. And I can tell you’re visibly shaken, but you don’t talk about it. You just curl back into me and act like it never happened. What are you afraid of? I’ll protect you from anything, but I can’t if I don’t know what’s haunting you.”

“It’s nothing. I’m fine, really.”

“It doesn’t seem like nothing at 2 AM when you’re having a panic attack.”

_I'm drunk in the back of the car_

_And I cried like a baby coming home from the bar (oh)_

_Said "I'm fine", but it wasn't true_

_I don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you_

“I don’t want to scare you away. There’s a lot of shit that goes on in my head. There’s a reason I tend to keep it to myself.”

“You don’t have to. I’m not going anywhere. That’s something else you should know by now.”

She sighed, twirling the bracelet around her wrist. “You’ve lived it all with me, Logan. Do I really have to explain my nightmares to you? People are dead. People have left. I let someone in and I lose them. I don’t want that happening to us. I love you too much to let my insecurity about not being able to tell you that scare you away. I keep things to myself because it’s easier. Because if you don’t see all of my crazy, there’s a better chance I don’t have to worry about losing you.”

“You – you love me?”

_And I, snuck in through the garden gate_

_Every night that summer just to seal my fate (oh)_

_And I screamed for whatever it's worth_

_I love you, ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?_

_He looks up, grinning like a devil_

“You didn’t already know that?” she asked.

“No, I knew. You’ve just never said the words before.”

Now or never. All or nothing.

“You want me to let you into my crazy? Okay, well, when I was 16, I told my mother that I loved her before I went to bed one night. When I woke up the next morning, she was gone. And then I didn’t see her for over a year until I tracked her down at some sketchy bar where she was not too pleased to see me. And as stupid as it sounds, I’m too afraid to say it, those words, for the fear that the next person I say them to will also walk out of my life like those words don’t matter. Like they don’t mean, by their very definition, that I want you to stay.”

He stepped closer to her, enveloping her in his arms. She sunk into him, welcoming the comfort of his touch.

“You can trust me, Veronica. I promise you I’m not going anywhere.”

Two years. Two summers. She had to say it. She wanted to say it, had wanted to for months now.

“I love you.”

He pulled back ever so slightly and grinned down at her. She wanted to memorize that expression on his face and keep it in the back of her mind forever. She never wanted to forget that moment when they boy who loved her so completely with everything he had realized that she felt the exact same way about him.


	3. Lover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is set pre-season 4. Closer to the years the books were set in.   
> Taylor Swift owns her lyrics used here, not me.

_We could leave the Christmas lights up 'til January_

_This is our place, we make the rules_

_And there's a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you, dear_

_Have I known you twenty seconds or twenty years?_

She had never imagined that her life would turn out like this. After all of their ugly fights and messy breakups, they’d found a place of peace and happiness together. And to think, all it took was nine years apart after their eight years of friendship and whatever else that time period could be defined as.

But Logan was hers now. Fully and unequivocally hers.

They owned a house on the beach together, shared a bed, and co-parented one very large dog. She almost didn’t believe it half of the time, especially when he was gone on deployment. But when he was here? When he was home? She couldn’t imagine her life having gone any other way.

Veronica watches him now, his legs stretched out in a V as he sits on the floor, untangling a string of twinkle lights, his eyebrows all scrunched together in frustration. God, he’s cute. She’s so happy that he’s hers.

“I can’t believe I actually get you home for the holidays this year,” she tells him, still watching him in amusement.

He glances up at her briefly before returning his focus to the lights. “I can’t remember the last time I was home this time of year.”

“Trust me, it’s been a while.”

He laughs at the lights in triumph as he manages to get them untangled before looking back up at her. “You always did like Christmas. For as long as I’ve known you.” He pushes himself up from the floor and walks over to her. “You always wore that green sweater with the red hollies around the neckline right before Christmas break. Do you still have that?”

She groans, shoving him. “Contrary to popular belief I _have_ actually grown since I was 13.”

“You always looked so festive in it.”

“Oh, I’ll show you festive,” she huffs, picking up a rope of glittering green garland.

“If you even _think_ about wrapping me in that stuff,” Logan warns her.

“You’ll what? Go on, finish your threat. I want to hear it.”

He sighs overdramatically in response and bends to pick up his freshly untangled twinkle lights. He starts roping them around their tree from the top down. Veronica continues to watch him work in amusement, the garland already forgotten in her hands. Logan steps back to examine his work, grumbling when he notices the strings of lights aren’t even. She steps over to him, pressing herself into his back and lacing her arms around his waist from behind. The garland, still clutched loosely in her fingertips, dangles against his left thigh.

“You get oddly sentimental this time of year,” he tells her, patting her clasped hands around his waist. “Last year when we had our holiday Skype date, you insisted on pointing out the significance of every ornament you’d hung on the tree.”

“I like Christmas, so sue me.”

“No, I think it’s more than that.”

She steps back from him with a sigh, haphazardly tossing the garland onto the couch. “It’s no big secret that my parents fought all of the time. But for whatever reason, when December rolled around, they’d cut it out for the month. I think that’s why I started to like this time of year so much as a kid. We were finally a happy family during it. And after my mom left, Dad and I would go over-the-top crazy trying to celebrate without her there. It stuck with me into adulthood and I just…I don’t know, I’ve been waiting to share the cheer with you, I guess. Because right now, when I think about you and Christmas together? I still think about that one holiday party where your dad got shot.”

Logan sighs, chuckling to himself. “Ah yes the traditional Echolls Family Christmas. Classic.”

“I _know_ this time of year doesn’t hold a lot of fond memories for you, but…” she trails off, extending her arms out wide. “This is our chance to make new ones. In our own home. With each other. Together.”

He laughs, leaning over to kiss her on the forehead. “I get it. Avoid deployments that don’t have me home by December. I’ll see what I can do.”

“All I ask.”

“Really? That’s _all_ you ask?”

“Well, if I had it my way, you’d stay in Neptune with me year-round. But someone here just had to go and fall in love with a career with such incessant travel demands.”

He laughs at her description of the Navy, bending down to open the box of ornaments. “My career isn’t the only thing I fell in love with.”

“You better be talking about me and not flying or I’ll –”

“Empty threats,” he smirks, chucking a piece of bubble wrap at her. “But yes, I was talking about you.”

Veronica huffs and kneels down next to him in front of the box. An odd collection of sorts she’s accumulated over the years gleams up at her– ornaments she stole from her dad claiming them as her own, ones she bought for herself in law school, ones Logan brought her back from overseas Christmas markets.

She reaches in and picks up the crystal reindeer he’d brought her last year, watching it chase rainbows over the floor as it catches the sunlight.

“Sorry I don’t get to bring you a new one this year,” he tells her.

“I’d rather have you, anyway.”

“You big sap.”

She grins, curling into his side. “That’s you the other 11 months of the year. Let me have this one.”

_Can I go where you go?_

_Can we always be this close forever and ever?_

_And ah, take me out, and take me home_

_You're my, my, my, my lover_

When he comes back from a deployment, she finds that she can’t get enough of him. It always starts with them not getting out of bed for days – wrapped up in sheets and orgasms and food they get delivered. Whispered secrets and confessions against skin as they move past whatever was holding them back as teenagers. She speaks those three little words – I love you – out loud now and every time she swears his breath hitches in his throat, almost like a knee-jerk reaction from all those years in their past when she was too afraid to say them out loud.

She’d loved Lilly and Lilly died. She’d loved her mother and her mother left. She’d loved Duncan and Duncan left, came back, and left again. She’d worried if she spoke the words aloud to Logan, he’d leave her too. But she’d lost him regardless. And ever since she got him back, she refuses to let go of him ever again. She refuses to _not_ love him.

So, maybe she’s a bit of a marshmallow when it comes to him. She’s not ashamed of it. She’d wasted too much time in their past pretending otherwise.

“All right, I’m heading to the store,” Logan says, twirling his car keys around his index finger.

“I’ll come with you,” Veronica offers, closing the lid on her laptop.

“You don’t have to do that, you’re busy working on something. What do you need? I’ll pick it up for you.”

She’s drops her gaze, feeling the embarrassment at her next confession already coloring her cheeks. “I don’t actually need anything.”

He chuckles, walking back toward her sitting at the table. “You’ve been following me around like a puppy since I got back. And it’s adorable, but I have to ask, did something happen while I was gone?”

“Can’t a girl just miss her boyfriend?”

“A normal girl? Sure. You, on the other hand…”

She shoves him as she stands up and walks past him to find her bag. “Why I allow myself to miss a jackass like you I’ll never know.”

“You only miss me for my body, admit it. You’ve been hooked on this,” he gestures down at himself. “Since we were 17.”

Veronica rolls her eyes. “Doubtful.”

“Oh really?” he asks, raising his eyebrows at her. “I’ll remember that the next time I get you naked and begging.”

“I don’t beg.”

Logan leans into her side. “You did last night. _Logan, please I’m so close, don’t stop._ ”

She shoves him again. “Ass.”

He laughs, watching her as she sits down on the couch to zip up her boots. “All right, if you won’t admit to missing my body, what’s with the sudden urge to be wherever I’m at?”

“You leave for me three months and want to know why I’m suddenly a barnacle attached to your side?”

“I’ve been on longer deployments before. 90 days is nothing.”

She stands and walks over to him. “92 days,” she corrects. “Don’t forget two of those months had 31 days.”

“It’s still less than 180.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier. You’re still not…here.”

He wraps his arms around her and pulls her up against his chest. She breathes him in – the real thing is always so much better than the bottles of products he leaves behind.

“I’d annoy you if I followed you around like this,” he says into her hair.

“Am I annoying you?”

“No, I’m not you.”

She huffs and burrows against him closer.

“I miss you when I’m gone too, you know?” he tells her, smoothing a hand down the back of her hair. “Sleeping just isn’t the same without your cold toes trying to find warmth between my legs in the middle of the night.”

“You’re like a furnace,” she protests. “It helps me sleep.”

He kisses the top of her head. “You can follow me around as long as you like. I won’t complain.”

“Good.”

“Might have to consider a name change from Bobcat though.”

She looks up at him with narrowed eyes. “Maybe I’m just stalking my prey.”

Logan grins down at her. “And what are your intentions once you catch your prey?”

“That’s an after the store activity,” she tells him, sliding out from his arms. “So, we should probably go get whatever it is that you need, so we can get back for that.”

“Suddenly, I think the store can wait,” he says, tugging her back toward their bedroom. 

“Seriously?” she asks, stumbling after him. “I already have my shoes on.”

“Oh, don’t worry. They’re not hard to take off.”

_We could let our friends crash in the living room_

_This is our place, we make the call_

_And I'm highly suspicious that everyone who sees you wants you_

_I've loved you three summers now, honey, but I want 'em all_

They have this game they like to play. Neither of them are entirely sure how it even got started, but it’s become part of their regular routine. Logan’s become an early riser and Veronica continues to try and fight it off for as long as she can. So, when he wakes with the sun, he heads down to the beach to get an early morning surf in. She goes down to collect him later, after she’s had her coffee and fed Pony.

And that’s where their game starts. A one-off joke, that’s become more of a long-standing bet.

She started noticing the eyes of other women following him as he walked over to her, all wet and toned with that cocky grin on his face. She can never blame them for looking honestly, but she is nothing if not territorial – she did earn herself the nickname Bobcat for a reason – and Logan, of course, picked up on it right away. He reads her too easily.

“It’s cute that you still get jealous,” he’d told her that first morning.

“Oh, like you don’t?”

And they’re pretty sure that’s how this game started. Purposely pretending not to know each other when she joins him down on the beach. She lets the ogling women drool over him for a bit before she swoops in and tries to pick him up. He’ll let the guys trying to get into her pants think they have a shot before using a Dick-style pickup line she has no choice but to fall for.

To anyone else, they must seem insane. Last week he was agreeing to help her move to her “new apartment” instead of joining these two brunettes on their fancy yacht. And the following day she was fake swooning over his use of the one of the cheesiest pickup lines to ever exist about her falling from heaven.

But they always walk away together in a fit of laughter, sneaking glances back at the bewildered looks of their rejected.

“You need to step up your game, Echolls. Too many more of those god awful pickup lines, and I’ll choose the other guy next time.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Want to test that theory?”

“You’d leave me for one of those pricks?”

She laughs, curling into his side. “Leave you? Never.”

“You know, nothing’s stopping me from choosing the party offerings over the chores you counter-offer with.”

Veronica rolls her eyes. “Please, like I actually need your help flipping _our_ mattress. Besides, the implied innuendo was heavy with that one.”

“Maybe a part of me misses my reckless ‘09er days.”

“You miss being single?”

He shoots her a look and she laughs.

“I’m sure Dick could get you into all sorts of wild and crazy parties,” she points out.

Logan groans and drapes an arm across her shoulders. “On second thought, maybe we _should_ go evaluate the effectiveness of our mattress.”

“Now _there’s_ a pickup line I can get behind.”

_My heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue_

_All's well that ends well to end up with you_

_Swear to be overdramatic and true to my lover_

“Do you ever think about the what ifs in life?” Logan asks her one night.

“Which ones? What if Lilly never died? What if I accepted that law firm job in New York?”

“What if you ended up with Duncan? Or Piz?”

She rolls onto her side, propping herself up on one elbow and looking over at him still lying on his back. “Why would I have done that?”

She sees the small shrug of his shoulders. “If Duncan hadn’t had to flee the country after kidnapping his own child, would you have stayed with him? If I hadn’t gotten you back to Neptune to help me out, would you have stayed in New York with Piz?”

“No,” she answers him without hesitation.

He finally shifts his gaze to look up at her. “You’re so sure about that?”

“I’m positive.”

A tiny grin tugs at the corners of his lips. “And why’s that?”

“Come on, you felt it, didn’t you? Senior year? I may have been with him, but I was gravitating back toward you. Duncan was my first love, but it was never something that was meant to last. If he had stayed, I’m positive we would have broken up by the end of the school year. And Piz…” she trails off, shaking her head. “We could not have been more wrong for each other.”

“You were living with the guy.”

“And now I’m living with you.”

Logan shifts, propping himself up on one elbow to match her position. “So, given the choice, you’d still choose me?”

“Every time.”

“Your past self seems to have different thoughts on the matter.”

“Maybe I’ve grown up. Come to my senses.”

He leans over and kisses the tip of her nose.

“The real what if question here though,” she starts. “Is what if Lilly never died?”

“She and I were never going to last. All of the cheating and breaking up and getting back together. It was bound to self-destruct for good eventually.”

“What would she think of me dating her ex?”

“She’d support it, probably. She could finally talk to you about sex without you blushing in response.”

Veronica rolls her eyes. “I was 15!”

“So were we.”

She shoves him and he laughs, rolling back onto his back. She hooks one of her legs between his thighs and rests her chin on his chest.

“You’d choose me over her?” she asks. “Actually no, don’t answer that. It’s not a fair question.”

“I’d choose you.”

“Logan, you don’t –”

“You remember her, V. She chose herself time and time again. We loved her anyway, but – she and I were never going to have something like this. Something real. So, I choose you.”

She hums, content, and snuggles down against his side. “Who needs what if scenarios, anyway?”

_And you'll save all your dirtiest jokes for me_

_And at every table, I'll save you a seat, lover_

They were supposed to meet their friends here at 7. It’s now 7:30 and she and Mac are the only ones here. Wallace arrives with his new girlfriend, Shae, a few minutes later and attempts to slide into the seat on her left. Veronica shoots him a look.

“Seriously? Lover boy can’t sit across from you? He has to be next to you at all times?”

She gives him a small shrug.

“Come on, Wallace,” Shae says, tugging on his arm. “For the few weeks I’ve known them, I know he likes to whisper things in her ear all evening.”

“If we ever get that disgustingly cute,” Wallace starts, shifting down a seat. “Warn me.”

Shae laughs as Veronica ducks her head in embarrassment.

“Ignore them,” Mac tells her. “You and Logan are finally happy. And it’s about damn time.”

She feels herself nearly blushing again, thinking about how long her friends have been getting roped into the previous drama of their relationship. Logan walks in a few minutes later, sliding into the seat she purposely saved for him. He greets everyone before leaning into Veronica.

“I heard the dumbest joke today.”

She groans, turning her head to look at him. “Do I even want to know?”

“What’s a 6.9?” he asks, quietly.

“I have a feeling I know where this is going, and I already hate it.”

“Another great thing screwed up by a period.”

She groans again, shoving him. “Give it two more days you big baby. Mine will be over by then.”

“I told you it was dumb,” he laughs, stealing her water glass and taking a sip.

“And yet, you made me hear it anyway.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“You’re 30 minutes late because Dick was busy telling you dirty jokes?”

“Who said I was with him?”

She raises an eyebrow at him.

“Okay fine,” Logan sighs. “Maybe we ended up in a Google spiral of dirty jokes that make us seem like we’re still 16 and we lost track of time.”

“My adult boyfriend ladies and gentlemen.”

He leans over and kisses her cheek. “You saved a seat for me, anyway.”

“Maybe I like your stupid dirty jokes,” she answers with a shrug.

“Or maybe,” he starts, poking her in the arm. “You just like _me_.”

She grins at him, thinking about the life they’ve built together. There’s really no one else she’d rather spend it with.

“Yeah,” Veronica agrees. “That too.”


End file.
